


bad ideas, i know where they lead

by goingaftercacciato



Category: The Halcyon (TV)
Genre: (Also A Brief Mention of Adil Having A Tattoo Slipped In There Because I Just Think He Would, (Also A Little Bit of English Major Adil Slipped in There As a Treat), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And A Fit Barman, And Emma Being The World's Best Gay Ally and Friend, And I Think Toby Would Be Into It), But Also Very On Brand With Toby Again Having No Idea How to Process His Emotions, But I Wanted to Write Something with Emma and Toby So..., Emma Garland: Wingwoman Extraodinaire, Flirting, Friendship, I've Betrayed My Brand Because There's No Sappy Kiss At the End of This One :/, IDK What Else to Even Tag This As..., M/M, Pre-Relationship, TBH This Is Kind Of Pointless, The Three Fs, Toby Is Oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:02:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27114400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingaftercacciato/pseuds/goingaftercacciato
Summary: They’ve been sat at the bar for all of five seconds, and Toby is already slipping into very, very deep regret. It’s his own fault, really. He probably ought to have known better than to have told Emma about his pathetic little crush on one of the bartenders at the local pub in the first place. And he definitely ought to have known better than to bring her to said pub on a night when he knew said bartender would be working.
Relationships: Adil Joshi & Emma Garland, Emma Garland/Freddie Hamilton (Mentioned), Toby Hamilton & Emma Garland, Toby Hamilton/Adil Joshi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	bad ideas, i know where they lead

**Author's Note:**

> I was never gonna post this monstrosity...Blame it on the Discord; I will accept no responsibility.
> 
> Title from Tessa Violet's "Bad Ideas" which has nothing to do with this fic, but it's what I was listening to when I originally wrote this so...Ya know.

“So, which one is he?”

They’ve been sat at the bar for all of five seconds, and Toby is already slipping into very, very deep regret. It’s his own fault, really. He probably ought to have known better than to have told Emma about his pathetic little crush on one of the bartenders at the local pub in the first place. And he _definitely_ ought to have known better than to bring her to said pub on a night when he knew said bartender would be working. 

“Could you keep your voice down, please?” He asks with polite panic, though she’d hardly spoken loud enough for even him to hear her over the music and the general din. 

Already, he can feel his treacherous cheeks beginning to go red, but he knows, with no small amount of dread, that it’s only bound to get more utterly mortifying from here on out; no matter how much he may try to persuade her, there’s no chance Emma will just let them leave before she works out which of the three men behind the counter it is that has caught Toby’s eye. He darts a glance towards the other end of the bar, just brief enough to catch a glimpse before Emma can try and follow his gaze. 

“And no, absolutely not. I’m not telling you who he is.”

“Oh, come on, Toby,” Emma nearly whines. “I just want to see what he looks like. That’s all. I’m not going to embarrass you.” 

She bats her lashes and hits him with a potent, cherry-red pout: the same one that had convinced him to paint the living room of their London flat a truly tragic shade of orange, and to dress up like a complete twat for a fancy dress party in secondary school that he very much didn’t want to attend, and to vandalise a wall in The Halcyon’s basement with their initials at the risk of earning both their fathers’ ire, and to do far too many other horrifically stupid things over the twenty years that he’s known her. But Toby is not going to let himself crumble so easily this time; his last remaining shred of pride won’t allow it. 

“Oh, I don’t believe that for a second.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means, Emma,” he says pointedly, “That I haven’t forgotten what happened last time I told you about a crush I had.”

“Oh, for God’s sake--” She gives Toby’s shoulder a solid shove, but she’s laughing as she does it, so he figures she’s not actually too upset by his lack of trust. “We were ten years old, Toby! Ten! I mean, that was so long ago, you were still straight!” 

Of course, Toby knows, and has always known, Emma hadn’t meant to shout, quite loudly, about his self-deluding crush on Theresa Buchanan in the middle of his birthday party with all his snooty primary school peers around to hear; she’d only been surprised. But intentional or not, embarrassment of that calibre is not so easily forgotten.

“Hmm, tell that to my mother.” He rolls his eyes, perhaps a bit overdramatic but certainly not unfairly so. “She’s _still_ trying to convince me that Theresa and I would make _such_ a lovely couple.”

“Well, we both know _that_ is not my fault. And,” she says, firmly poking a chipped burgundy nail into Toby’s shoulder, “You’ll have to forgive me for getting a bit excited about you actually fancying someone, you know, since it only happens once every thirteen years.”

Toby scoffs and draws his finger along a bright gouge in the mahogany countertop that hadn’t been there the last time he was in. “Just because I’ve never told you about any others doesn’t mean there haven’t been any.”

There haven’t been any. Not really. Of course, he’s been attracted to his fair share of men since he finally put together the rather terrifying pieces at eighteen. But acknowledgement and acceptance are two very different beasts, and even after five years, Toby’s not entirely managed to conquer the latter. So he’s never allowed himself to get attached, relying on the powerful combination of distance and denial to keep himself suitably aloof; he can look and he can appreciate, but actual, romantic feelings are thoroughly out of the question. 

Or, well, they _were_ , up until about six months ago.

“Okay, come on, Toby.” Emma swivels on her stool to face him, her knees knocking into his thigh. “In all seriousness, how am I supposed to be your wingwoman if you won’t even tell me who the guy is?”

“Wh-what? You--you’re not supposed to be my wingwoman!” Toby sputters, somewhat unreasonably indignant at the implication. “This isn’t--I--Emma, that’s not why I brought you--We’re just here for a drink, all right? So if you could just--just forget about it, please?”

But all his secrecy and evasion is for nought. Because hardly ten seconds after he’s resolutely rebuffed Emma’s wheedling, Adil spots them and starts over with a smile warmer than a perfect day in summer, and Toby promptly turns to scarlet mush.

“You’re late,” Adil teases softly. He reaches beneath the bar and plucks out a tumbler, setting it in front of Toby with a delicate thunk. “I was beginning to worry about you.”

With approximately ten million butterflies fluttering about in his stomach, Toby ducks his head and bites back a dopey grin. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that I was on such a strict schedule.” 

When he glances back up, Adil is digging two ice cubes from the bucket, but as he carefully drops them into the glass, his gaze flickers curiously, subtly over to Emma, then back to Toby. There’s an obvious question in his eyes, but Toby can’t bear to look at Emma and see the sheer delight he knows is now painted across her face. So, instead, he keeps his focus on Adil; though, that hardly does much to help calm his nerves given that tonight Adil is just as unbearably gorgeous as usual, and Toby’s heart feels like it is going to explode just from looking at him.

He sweeps out a hand in Emma’s general direction. “Um, Adil, this is my friend, Emma Garland. Emma, Adil Joshi.”

The words are barely out of his mouth before Emma’s hand is jutting across the counter, and Toby’s throat goes tight with fear. 

“It is a _pleasure_ to meet you, Adil Joshi.”

Ever the gentleman, Adil takes her hand with a quiet laugh and a gracious nod. “And you, Emma Garland. I’ve heard quite a bit about you.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“I’m afraid it is.” Adil tosses a gentle smirk to Toby and steps away to pull down a half-empty bottle of Toby’s favourite whiskey and a shaker. “Well, I already know what Toby will be having,” he says with an air of fond familiarity that makes Toby’s stomach flip. He twists the cap off the whiskey with a practised flick of his wrist and tips the bottle over the shaker, letting a good few slugs splash in. “But what can I get for you, Ms. Garland?”

“Bourbon, on the rocks, if you please, sir,” Emma says lightly, patting her hands on the edge of the bar.

“Of course.”

Adil makes quick, graceful work of Toby’s whiskey sour, which is to be expected—he's made it for Toby dozens of times at this point—but as soon as he moves away to grab the lemon juice, Emma’s elbow jabs into Toby’s ribs. He turns to glare at her, but she deftly ignores him and instead gives him an emphatic thumbs-up and an exaggerated look that says she is _quite_ impressed. He elbows her right back and gives her a look that is meant to be chastising but probably comes off more like a deer in the headlights; she kindly drops the act anyhow.

Once Adil has returned and topped Toby’s drink off with a bright wedge of orange, he efficiently metes out a glass and ice for Emma before pausing with his hand over a squat bottle of bourbon.

“Any preference?”

Emma shrugs and tosses in a cheeky grin for good measure. “Whatever you recommend, my good sir. I’m not picky.”

Adil tosses his own grin right back. “Fair enough.”

If Toby had any luck in the universe, that would be the end of it. Adil would pour Emma her drink and bustle off to take care of some very important, far away business, and Emma would tease Toby mercilessly for a few minutes, and he would endure it until the novelty wore off and they forgot about it in a pleasant, buzzing cloud of whiskey, and he’d escape the night with his dignity still marginally intact.

But the universe has no pity for him, and Toby can only stare in rapidly escalating alarm as Adil not only sticks around but slips seamlessly into light banter with Emma. It’s bad enough that Emma’s even met Adil, the last thing Toby needs is for her to get chummy with him—that will only end in disaster and his own humiliation. And if he’s to be entirely honest with himself, which he is very much _not_ keen to do, there’s a low simmer of something like jealousy flaring up in his chest, growing sour at the sudden fissure of Adil’s precious attention and the ease and charm with which Emma keeps him caught up in idle small talk.

“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Mr Joshi,” Emma says. She lifts up her glass and swirls the contents like she’s some uppity sommelier, the ice clinking up a small cacophony. “See, you’ve heard about me, but I haven’t heard about you.” For a moment, Toby could almost swear that Adil’s lips dip down into an ever-so-slight frown, but Emma doesn’t seem to sense anything is amiss, so he must be mistaken. “I hardly think that’s right, do you?”

With a ridiculously beautiful smile, Adil plants his hands on the bar, and Toby does his best not to be a weirdo and stare at the delicate bones of his wrists, the muscles of his forearms, the small, intricate black characters inked on the inside of his right elbow, only just visible beneath the rolled cuff of his wine-red sweater; he very much fails and very much is a complete weirdo, but luckily, Adil is too busy with Emma to notice Toby’s pathetic ogling.

“Hm, and how would you propose we rectify this grave error?” Adil asks.

“Tell me about yourself,” Emma says, chin propped on her hand.

“What do you want to know?”

“Well, whereabouts are you from?”

“Havering, originally, but we moved to Oxford when I was ten.”

“Any siblings?”

“Two. Older sister, younger brother.”

“You’re at the university as well, I imagine?”

Adil nods. “I was. Graduated last June with a first in English. As yet undecided on whether I’ll go back for the masters.”

“Oh, handsome and clever,” Emma practically purrs. 

Seeing as he clearly has no part to play in this conversation and hoping to drown the flighty bird of panic currently wreaking havoc in his stomach, Toby takes a healthy swig of his drink. 

He’s scarcely had the time to even taste it when Emma asks, “Are you seeing anyone?”

And he promptly chokes. He coughs roughly, his face already aflame and getting hotter by the second, and he wishes that the ground would rise up and swallow him whole. But the universe still isn’t keen on doing him any favours, and he stays stuck firmly on his barstool with no way to hide his sunburned-tomato face as Adil sends him a worried glance before answering Emma. 

“No, I’m not, not at the moment.” 

Adil ought to be offended, he ought to feel uncomfortable, he ought to be telling Emma that it’s _wildly_ inappropriate to ask such questions of someone she’s not known for even five bloody minutes. The _last_ thing he ought to be doing is indulging her with an actual answer.

“A charming young man like yourself, single? Surely you’ve got your eye on someone, at least,” Emma says conspiratorially with a smirk that would befit an evil queen.

Toby barely refrains from pulling her from her seat and ushering her right out the door. He could never hate Emma—she’s like a sister to him, entwined through his goddamn soul whether he likes it or not—but at the moment, he’s rather close to strongly disliking her.

Adil, though, seems far more amused with Emma’s antics than Toby is. He merely raises a brow and smiles down at his hands. “I suppose I do.” He glances to his left. “Excuse me.”

As Adil glides away to help the tweed-covered couple who have just sat down at the other end of the bar, Toby feels his heart plummeting straight to his shoes. Adil has his eye on someone; Adil likes someone; Adil likes someone, and it’s not Toby. Of course it’s not. How could it be? He has always known Adil could never fancy a guy like him and the small fantasies about Adil that he has entertained for the past few months are just that: fantasies, impossible, laughable fantasies. Somehow, though, it still hurts like a steel-capped boot to the stomach. 

But Toby can’t afford to mope around at the moment, so instead he latches onto his scandalised annoyance to block out the pitiful cries of his bleeding heart.

“For God’s sake, Emma!” He hisses. “Are you out of your mind?”

“What do you mean?” She asks in a spot-on evocation of total innocence. She pinches a cocktail straw from the cup on the counter and stirs it around her untouched drink. “I was just making small talk.”

“My God, you could not have been any more obvious.” He scoffs and draws his finger through the ring of condensation left on the counter by his glass, pulling the water out in scraggly patterns. “ _Oh Adil, you’re so handsome. Are you single? Do you fancy anyone?_ ” 

Taking a slow first sip of her bourbon, lips pursed tight around her straw, Emma cocks an utterly unimpressed brow. “That’s not what I sound like.”

“Emma, for the love of--!” He stops himself, casting a paranoid glance around them, then starts again, much closer to a whisper. “You said you weren’t going to embarrass me!”

“I’m not!” She has the audacity to actually sound mildly offended at the suggestion. “I’m just getting to know him better. And, by the way--” 

Without warning, she sets down her drink and punches Toby square in the shoulder. 

Having been nearly knocked from his stool, Toby lets out a decidedly unbecoming yelp and grabs uselessly at the soon-to-be bruise. 

“What the _Hell_ was that for?”

“For not telling me that by ‘cute bartender’ you meant ‘most unbelievably attractive man to ever walk the earth’!”

“Oh, shut up,” Toby grumbles, though she’s not wrong. At this rate, his cheeks are going to be permanently stained red. “Need I remind you that you’re dating my brother?”

Emma waves him off. “Pfft, please. I love Freddie dearly, but we both know he has _nothing_ on Adil. I mean, good God, that man is fit.” Her damn-near raunchy smirk takes on a worryingly cheeky glint, and she pokes him, much more gently, in the arm. “I’m proud of you, Toby Hamilton. Age and homosexuality have really refined your taste.”

Toby groans, burying his head in his hands and smothering a self-betraying laugh. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

By the time he picks his head back up a whole five seconds later, Emma’s expression has shifted to something far more serious and terribly earnest. “Toby,” she says softly, laying her hand on his forearm. “You can’t expect anything to happen if you never put yourself out for it.” 

It’s a perfectly reasonable statement, but Toby resents it anyhow. Because it doesn’t matter how far out he puts himself. He could put himself out to the bloody moon, and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of a difference: Adil is wonderful, intelligent and charming and handsome and kind and so many things Toby doesn’t even have the words for; he’s never going to be interested in a dull, less-than-conventionally-attractive, aloof maths nerd who can barely hold a conversation and can’t even manage to buy clothes that fit him properly. 

And that’s even without the rather massive stumbling block of Adil already being interested in someone else.

Toby merely offers Emma a noncommittal shrug in response, his attention fixed on the prominent gouge in front of him, the soft wood and varnish flaking up as he scrapes his nail along it. He could never explain to her just how impossible what he wants is. She’s too good of a friend: too hellbent on encouraging him in everything and buoying his lacklustre self-esteem and bolstering his nerves with delusions of grandeur even when he stands absolutely no chance. And she’s especially stubborn when it comes to him reckoning with his sexuality. Which is somewhat understandable; after all, she is the currently only one who knows that he’s gay, and having grown up alongside him, she was always bound to be a little protective of him. And it’s nice most of the time, to have someone in his corner like that. But sometimes he can’t help but feel that she doesn’t understand that he’s not like her, that he doesn’t have her looks or aplomb or natural charisma, that he has to curb his expectations and has come to accept that romance is not likely to be within his reach.

Thankfully, though, Emma accepts his nonanswer and doesn’t push him on it. He takes a solemn sip of his drink and lets the noise of the pub around him drown out his rapidly sinking thoughts. But as it turns out, eavesdropping on a conversation between two pudgy middle-aged men about their less than sociable political opinions doesn’t do much in the way of lightening his mood. Still, stewing in silence is better than facing Emma and her benevolent badgering, so he keeps his eyes down and his shoulders hunched.

Until the stool beside him creaks, and his head whips up in an instant. 

“Where are you going?” He asks with a shred of true horror as he watches Emma slip off her seat, her heels hitting the floor with a solid _clop_. 

“To the loo, if you must know,” she responds primly, patting away a crease in her blouse. “Watch my bag, will you?”

Before Toby can even nod, she strides off, disappearing into the squirming crowd, and with an indulgently harrowed sigh, he turns back to his drink; feeling miserable and crumpled, he downs the rest of it in one go. 

“Another?” 

Toby startles at Adil’s voice, nearly dropping his empty glass. The blush rushes back to his cheeks, if it had ever even left that is. 

“Oh, um, yes. Yes, please. Thank you.” 

He nudges his glass across the counter and searches frantically for his composure. He’s always been a bit stiff and awkward around Adil, but he hasn’t been this bad—all bumbling and stuttering and unable to meet his eye—since the first night they met. 

For his part, Adil simply flashes that wonderful, heart-melting smile of his and sets about mixing up another whiskey sour. This time, Toby doesn’t even bother to try and stop himself from watching Adil’s hands, the elegant way they move, their surety and precision. Everything about him is so incredibly beautiful, even the smallest details. For a long time, Toby had thought he was just jealous of Adil: of his dashing effortless good looks, of the smooth grace with which he carries himself, of his ability to easily connect with every person who walked through the door and keep them caught in his magnetic pull, of the way his neat clothes hug his trim body as if they were made especially for him. 

But the longer it went on, the less Toby could pretend it was anything as simple as envy, and eventually, he had to admit to himself that it was bone-deep, heart-wrenching attraction. Attraction that all too soon developed into full-blown infatuation and then quickly leapt into frighteningly real affection. He has always told Emma it’s just an innocent little crush, but…Well, suffice to say you probably don’t routinely give up two nights out of your busy week to simply wait around at the bar nursing a single drink and hope the place will be deserted enough that you can eat up all the bartender’s attention for an hour or two if it’s just an innocent little crush.

“I’m sorry,” Toby blurts, apropos of nothing. 

Adil pauses and looks up at him, his face twisted with disturbingly endearing confusion and a freshly sliced orange wedge poised over the rim of Toby’s glass. “About what?”

“About Emma,” Toby clarifies. “She can be a bit…much sometimes.”

“It’s alright.” Thoughtful and responsible as ever, Adil pulls up another glass and fills it with water, then pushes both glasses across the counter to Toby. “I like her.” 

Though he doesn’t mean to, Toby can’t help but frown as he watches Adil rinse out the shaker. He wants Adil to like Emma, of course he does, but it fills him cold dread to think that Adil is actually getting a kick out of Emma’s indelicate behaviour and may egg her on. He tries to wipe away any visible signs of his apprehension when Adil turns back to him, but he must do a pretty poor job of it because Adil takes one look at him and breaks out in a sticky sweet smile.

“Don’t worry,” he says, planting his elbows on the bar and leaning closer. He covers Toby’s hand with his own and gives it a squeeze. “You’re still my favourite.”

Toby may as well have just run face-first into the sun; his skin burns more fiercely than it ever has, and his breath has abruptly vanished from his lungs; his heart flutters like a deranged bird, and his heavy mouth refuses to even open, let alone produce a single word. He’s left wide-eyed and red-faced, simply staring down at Adil’s hand over his like a shy, swooning fool. Which, in all fairness, he very much is.

But the universe finally decides to offer a blessed bit of relief, and before Toby passes out from the heady butterflies and lack of oxygen, a boorish customer calls from down the bar. Adil gives him an apologetic look before hurrying off, leaving Toby’s hand cold and changed. 

It’s rather pathetic really, how affected a mere touch leaves him. He’s starved himself of it for so long, even the briefest brush would have been like a feast. But this? God, he feels like a bloody schoolboy, mooning over his first crush: giggling and grinning to himself, melting to the floor at every little interaction. He’d be absolutely mortified of himself if he wasn’t too busy daydreaming about holding Adil’s hand for real, about pressing their palms together as they walk through the city on a breezy autumn day, about their fingers twined tightly and fitted perfectly together.

He’s not recovered at all, still a giddy mess, by the time Emma returns a few minutes later, and immediately, she notices something has changed; though, it would hardly take Sherlock Holmes to spot the difference.

“What on Earth has gotten into you?” She asks, neatly resettling herself in her seat and turning to give Toby a narrow-eyed once over. 

“Nothing,” he says, perhaps a bit too hastily, not quite able to bite back the grin that may very well be permanently stuck on his lips now. 

Taking a long, pointed sip from her drink, Emma raises an unconvinced, intrigued brow. “Did something happen between you and our dear barman?” 

“No, nothing,” he says firmly, though he can still feel the soft ghost of Adil’s skin against his. He presses his glass, cool and slick with condensation, against the inside of his wrist, but it isn’t much help against the flustered heat that has taken a hold of him.

Surprisingly, Emma merely hums in response and takes another glacial sip of her drink. “How’s your training course going? Still awful?”

Toby blinks at her, nonplussed. He expected her to put up something of a fight, drag some juicy tidbit out of him. Her easy surrender is…disconcerting to say the least. But he’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he jumps on the opportunity to change the subject and air out a few of his many frustrations with his class of apathetic undergrads.

Steered away from the dicey waters that are Toby’s feelings for Adil, their conversation flows smoothly, from Toby’s studies to Emma’s latest encounter with an eccentric couple that’s been staying at the hotel. Toby even starts to relax a little bit, letting the whiskey do its job and leaning into the pleasant, gentle buzz.

Or he had been starting to relax, until Adil reappears to pour Emma another glass of bourbon, and Emma unceremoniously asks, “Adil, what would you say your type is? Athletes, artists, scholars, _mathematicians_?” 

She leans her chin on her palm and flashes him her very best winning smile, masterfully ignoring the timid kick Toby delivers to her shin. She’s _trying_ to kill him. That’s the only explanation for it. He must have gravely offended her somehow in the past week, and now she legitimately wants him dead. But not before having a bit of fun and torturing him with his own stupid, hopeless emotions first.

Much to Toby’s horror but not entirely surprising at this point, Adil actually answers. “I suppose I am rather fond of bookish boys,” he says with a knowing smirk that Emma matches with far too much glee.

_Fuck._

_Fuck fuck fuck._

With his heart kicking its way up his throat, Toby locks his eyes on the bar and knocks back the remains of his drink in three large gulps before abruptly pushing out of his seat and running-without-running to the restroom where, hopefully, he can figure out how to breathe again.

Emma watches him go, a flood of guilt sloshing into her stomach. Toby seemed to really like Adil; he’s been gushing about him—well, at least, what passed for gushing with Toby, which is more like casually mentioning him every fortnight or so—for months, and it’s the first time he’s ever admitted to actually having an interest in someone since he came out to her. He’s always been so down on himself, so reluctant to put himself out there for fear of rejection; she had only wanted to help him, give him a little nudge, spur him into finally making a move and going after what he wants. But maybe she’d gone too far; Toby is awfully shy when it comes to men, after all, and he’s never favoured such a direct approach in anything.

Before she can wallow too far into her guilt, though, she hears Adil chuckle and turns back to find an amused smile sitting prettily on his lips. _God_ , she can see why Toby fancies the bloke so much. She probably would too if she hadn’t been gone on Freddie since she was eight years old.

“What?” Emma asks, tucking her elbows back up on the bar and scooting her stool a touch closer.

“It’s remarkable,” Adil says. “You’ve been here…Maybe an hour? And you’ve already worked it out. But him?” He shakes his head and reaches for Toby’s empty glass, dumping the leftover ice in the sink and tossing the rapidly wilting orange wedge into the bin beneath the bar. “I’ve been flirting with him for months, and he still has no idea.”

If not for her stool keeping her up, Emma could have nearly collapsed with relief. She had sensed, from the moment she saw the way Adil smiled at him, that Toby’s interest was not exactly unrequited; she would have never pushed it so far otherwise, so it’s quite nice to get some confirmation that she hasn’t gotten it all wrong and completely ballsed up Toby’s first real crush. 

“Yeah, he can be a bit…slow on the uptake, but it’s not his fault,” she explains. A twinge of anger and sorrow flares up in her chest as the memories of secondary school return: the other boys who had hounded Toby relentlessly until he burrowed down into himself, burying himself so deep in tar-thick denial and shame that Emma had worried that he’d never be able to find his way back to the surface. “You just…You just have to be forward with him, you know? Make it _really_ obvious.” 

Adil laughs as he whips out a cloth and begins mopping up the small rings left behind by Toby’s sweating glass. “I’m not sure how much more obvious I could make it.” 

Emma shrugs, and, as casually as she can manage, suggests, “You could ask him out?” 

“Yes, I suppose I could…” He draws the cloth back, balling it up between his hands, and doesn’t meet Emma’s eyes, suddenly shy. “I wanted to. Almost did a few times, but I always talked myself out of it. I was afraid I might have…misread the situation, and I didn’t want to risk it. I…I like him an awful lot,” he says, smiling softly to himself. 

By the time Toby returns, grumbling about a lack of paper towels and delicately wiping his damp hands against his trousers, Adil has moved away once more. And it’s only when Toby sees Emma’s sly smile, poorly hidden behind the rim of her glass, that he realises how utterly stupid it was to leave the two of them alone together. 

He clambers onto his stool with all the grace of a pissed-up toddler and wishes that he hadn’t polished off his drink so hastily because there’s no way he can face Adil to order another now, no matter how much he may need it.

“What did you do?” 

His mind is already racing through a million and one possibilities, each one more harrowing than the last. But Emma merely rolls her eyes as if he’s being entirely unreasonable.

“Oh, calm down, Toby,” she says, flopping a dismissive hand at him. “I didn’t do anything. I hardly even said a word to him.” 

He doesn’t believe her, not by a long shot; she looks far too pleased with herself to be innocent, but the busy pub is not the place for interrogation, so he has no choice but to take her at her word. For now. 

As it is, their conversation practically disappears, Toby eagerly downs his lukewarm water in a losing bid to settle his nerves, and Emma’s bourbon doesn’t last much longer; the opportunity to escape has come at last, and Toby would be a damned fool not to take it. So the second she sets her glass on the counter, he jumps up, handing her convenient excuses about lectures to prepare and assignments to grade.

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Emma doesn’t put up a protest as he hurriedly herds her towards the door, but any relief Toby might have felt at her cooperation is swiftly demolished by the sight of Adil standing at the till, counting out bills to a tipsy trio of lads. Any other night, Toby would have just tossed a tenner on the bar and made off, but he’s no idea how much he owes for Emma’s two bourbons; he has no choice but to settle up his tab with Adil, even though, at the moment, he’d rather do literally almost anything else. He briefly considers turning to a life of crime and dodging the bill before Emma none-too-gently prods him towards the counter.

Much as he would approach the gallows, reluctant and stomach knotted with anxiety, Toby makes his way up to the till to accept his inevitable humiliation. At least this end of the bar is relatively empty but for the seasoned drunks who are well into the wind: fewer snooping ears to overhear his crushing rejection.

“Leaving already?”

Toby’s sure he must be imagining the disappointment in Adil’s voice, but he’s too brittle at the moment to even sneak a quick peek at Adil’s face to be sure. Instead, he keeps his head down, fumbling to dig his wallet from his pocket. 

“I’m afraid so,” he says, only half-meaning it. “Assignments to grade and such.”

“Ah, of course. A graduate student’s work is never done.” Toby smiles down at the surprisingly clean floor; he can hear the computery beeps as Adil speedily tallies up their total. “£32.94.”

“Oh, uh…” It’s more than he’d been expecting, but he rifles through his wallet and draws up a few tenners and a couple of fivers, finally forced to meet Adil’s eyes as he hands them over. “Um, you can keep the change,” he says with all the frivolous nonchalance of a man who isn’t living on a scant university stipend because he’s too proud to take money from his ridiculously wealthy brother.

“You know,” Adil says conversationally. His fingers brush just barely against Toby’s as he takes the cash, and it nearly sends Toby splashing into a puddle on the floor. “There’s a new exhibition opening at the Ashmolean that’s supposed to be pretty interesting. I was thinking I might check it out on Friday.” The cash drawer springs open with a tinny, clattering rattle. “I don’t suppose you know anyone who might want to go with me?” He asks, glancing over at Toby meaningfully as he sorts the bills into their proper place.

Shoving his wallet back in his pocket, Toby frowns and glances behind him. “I don’t know, Emma’s not exactly into that sort of thing.”

Adil stares at him for a moment, then shakes his head and laughs. “I wasn’t really talking about Emma, Toby.”

Toby’s face twists up in confusion, his mind lagging for a few seconds before it hits him. “ _Oh_ ,” he breathes. His chest swells with an emotion too bright and warm for him to name, some kind of swirling mess of disbelief and awe and radiant happiness. “Oh, uh…” He has to look down at the floorboards to gather himself, but even still, he can’t keep the giddy grin off his face as he answers Adil. “I’d love to?” 

The smile Adil gives him in return is enough to take Toby’s breath away for weeks to come. “Let me see your phone.”

Toby nearly throws his phone on the floor in his haste to hand it over, and he watches, stunned and a little short of breath, as Adil programs his number in. 

“There,” he says, passing the phone back, letting his fingers purposely dance across Toby’s once more. “You are going to use that, yes?” 

“Yes, of course,” Toby promises because, obviously, he’d have to be the biggest fool in the world not to. 

“Good. I’ll see you on Friday then.” 

God, if Toby were blushing harder, he’d set off the fire alarms. But there’s a queue forming behind him, and he’s not sure how much longer his legs can keep him up, so he bids Adil farewell and floats back over to where Emma is waiting for him, a million questions on her lips and pride in her eyes.

He spends the entire walk to the train station fending off Emma’s artful attempts at prying and pointedly ignoring her salacious smirks, but he finds that he really doesn’t mind, not even a little bit. He’s too ass-over-tits and over-the-moon to give much of a damn about anything. Adil. Adil Joshi. Adil Joshi, the most gorgeous, wonderful man Toby has ever met, asked _him_ out. He has a _date_ with Adil Joshi on Friday. His heart almost can’t bear the thought of it without bursting into a spray of rainbow confetti. And he knows, somehow, he has Emma to thank for it.

Outside the station, Emma pulls him down into a fierce hug, trying her hardest to squeeze the life out of him. He squeezes her right back and does his best not to cry when she takes his face in her hands and tells him how proud she is of him and how much she loves him. He pinky-swears to call her on Friday night and fork over all the details, and with one more hug, she marches off into the station to catch her train back to London.

When Toby finally steps through the door of his dingy flat, he strips out of his coat, tossing it over the arm of the sofa, and immediately pulls out his phone. He has to check, to assure himself that Adil did, in fact, ask him out and he hadn’t just dreamed it. Because, at this stage in his infatuation, that is very much a possibility. But when he clicks into his contacts, there it is: Adil’s name and number in neat little digital lines. He falls back onto his sofa, his phone held over his skittering heart, and just smiles at the blank, white walls.

After a few minutes of swooning, he lifts his phone and checks the time. 10:56PM. Adil will be on shift for another few hours yet, but Toby opens up a new message anyhow. He stares down at the blinking cursor for a long moment, unsure how to begin, debating whether he ought to be serious or try for a laugh or simply go with ‘hello’. Before he can overthink it too much, he goes with the first thing that comes to his mind.

**11:01PM: I hope you know Emma is never going to let me live this down...**

Letting out a steadying breath, he sets his phone down on the coffee table and stands, making his way towards the kitchen; he doesn’t get far before the scratchy buzz of his phone vibrating against the tabletop draws him back like a whip. 

**11:02PM: _Remind me to send her a card and some nice flowers, I owe her one hell of a thank you._**

As his cheeks twinge with the strain, Toby wonders if he’ll ever stop smiling or if this is his new permanent state because of Adil. He’s sure he’s smiled more in this one night than he has in the rest of his life, but, well, he really wouldn’t mind getting used to this.

**11:03PM: Yeah, me too.**


End file.
